The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for the selection of a elevator car for physically handicapped persons and, in particular, to such an apparatus operating in a group elevator control with the immediate allocation of target calls.
Known group elevator controls have call registering and indicating devices which are located on the floors to be served and include a keyboard for the input of calls for desired target floors. Such controls also have floor call memories which are associated with each elevator of the elevator group and are connected with the call registering and indicating devices, wherein a call identifying the input floor and a call identifying the target floor are stored in the call memories on the input of a call at a floor. A load memory, in which the number of the persons present in the respective elevator car is stored for each floor, and travelling time memories associated with the elevators of the group, are also provided for determining the desired allocation of the call.
A group control which is similar to the control described above is shown in the European Patent Specification No. EP-A 0 356 731 and uses the smallest waiting time of all passengers as the criterion for the allocation of the cars to the entered calls. In this control, the travel targets can be entered on the floors for example by call registering and indicating devices shown in the European Patent Specification No EP-A 0 320 583. Immediately after the registration and transmission of a call into a call memory organized according to entry and target floors, a computer in the form of a microprocessor computes a sum from data specific to the cars which sum is called the operating costs and corresponds to the waiting time which would arise for the passengers in the servicing of the call by each cars, The operating costs are transferred into a costs register immediately after the computation and subsequently compared at once by means of a comparison device with the operating costs of the other elevator cars. In this case, an allocation instruction is stored in an allocation memory of that elevator which displays the lowest operating costs. Immediately after the allocation of the car to the call has taken place in this manner, the elevator concerned and its position is indicated in an indicating field of the actuated call registering and indicating device so that the passenger can move in time to the associated shaft door.
Optimum results in respect of the smallest waiting times of the passengers can be achieved by the aforedescribed group control. For certain users of the elevators, such as for example use by physically handicapped persons, this control is however not readily suitable since other criteria must be the basis for the selection of an elevator car in this case.
The present invention is therefore based on the task of modifying the type of group elevator control described above in such a manner that physically handicapped persons have sufficient time to reach the shaft door of the selected elevator before arrival of the car at the floor, that they can board unhindered and that, in particular, wheelchair users have sufficient space in the car.